If you don’t know what an ACEO is, here is the accepted definition. ACEO stands for “Art Cards, Editions and Originals”. These cards have one main rule – they are 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches – the size of a trading card. Why make ACEOs? Well the main reason i started making them was to promote my artwork. I was having a hard time selling my larger original art pieces, people we’re complimenting them but no sales. Well i came upon ACEOs while searching the web and i saw how popular these little cards were. They are not only sold, but they are also traded,just like baseball and hockey cards. They are fun to make and because of their size don’t take too long to make. I started making a couple and began selling them on eBay and noticed that they were selling fairly well. Don’t expect to make millions selling them, but they can be priceless in promoting your artwork. My main goal with these cards was to get exposure and get my work out there. The reason why ACEO are great for this, is because they are affordable. Think about it, you’re giving buyers the opportunity to buy an original piece at a price that is affordable. That’s how is saw it and that is why they are so popular. If you’re a buyer, i can understand the hesitation of buying from an unknown artist. ACEOs take away some of that fear. Don’t expect that all ACEO you make will sell. What sells depends on what you create and if its unique. People buy art that is different, that stands out from the rest. Keep that in mind. There are ACEO makers out there that stick to one theme and do very well. If you want to see what im talking about, go to ebay and search for ACEO. You will see how popular they are and the variety of that is available . Ok ill tell you now how i make my cards. I will make another post on how you can use ACEO to promote your artwork.

Before you make them, you gotta first choose the type of paper that you’d like to use. If you’re going to paint use a paper that is made for painting. For example, if you want to make watercolor paintings, choose watercolor paper, either cold pressed or hot pressed. The same goes to the other mediums. I use pencil so the paper that i use is bristol vellum. There are people out there that don’t like using this paper because it has a slight tooth to it. If you’re one of those you can go for Bristol Smooth. Paper choice depends on personal preference so the best advice i can give you when choosing paper is to try different ones until you find one that you’re comfortable with. You will have projects where the paper that you use will not work. I like working with bristol vellum, its got a slight texture which i love when i draw animals, especially for the hair. But when i work on a portrait of a person, i choose a smoother paper. I could use the vellum paper, but the skin tones would not be as smooth as if i were to have used the smoother paper. it’s not a rule, because your style of drawing might work with a paper that others think is not right to use. Buyers might see that unique look and will buy. Drawing is all about having fun and experimenting, you will not only grow as an artist but you will enjoy the whole process of creating art.

Once you have chosen your paper you will now look for a template to trace. Find a card that measures 2.5″x3.5″. The easiest thing to do would be to find a baseball card or hockey card. I have used the same card to make my ACEOs for the past 5 years. Its a Marylin Monroe card that i got when i was like 14 years old. I used to collect comic book cards and i still have them stacked somewhere. I once bought a pack of baseball card and that Marylin Monroe card was included. I remember thinking that it was going to be worth millions one day, ah how i miss my innocence. Well enough with my childhood, now that you have your card you now trace it on the art paper that you chose. The number of cards that you get will depend on the size of the paper. I user a pad of 14″x17″ Bristol Vellum and i make around 20 cards from that single sheet. One quick note on paper that i did not mention. If you enjoy a bright paper i suggest you go for Canson Bristol Smooth or Canson Briston Vellum. Strathmore papers have a slight cream color, you will only notice it if you compare it side to side to a paper that is whiter. Ok, lets continue.

Once you have outlined the cards, all you have to do now is cut them out. I suggest using a sharp blade. I tried using an xacto knife but i noticed that they get dull pretty fast. I now use box blades that i buy at a dollar store. You can get 5 different kinds for a dollar. They work great for this and will last you a long time. Make sure you use a metal ruler as well because when cutting. If you use a plastic or wooden ruler you will have some unfortunate accidents. The problem with wooden and plastic rulers is that when you are running the blade along the ruler, the blade might cut into the ruler and climb over the ruler. Using a metal rulers removes this because the blade can’t cut through metal. Like i mentioned, this is tedious but i think its worth it once you have made them. These are also great for sketching. I use these cards to practice drawing textures and testing new techniques. Hopefully these cards will help you

Before i start the eyes on a drawing, i look at many reference photos to understand what i will drawing. In the case of a tiger, i not only look at tiger photographs, but i also look at reference photographs of regular house cats. The photographs of house cats actually are more beneficial because they show much more detail than most tiger photographs, for the simple reason that you can get closer to these cats.

Lets look at the image above to get understand what we will be drawing. Just by looking at it you can see that they eye is full of textures and reflections. We won’t be adding every one of those textures but will be adding patterns and reflections that will bring it to life. What makes a good eye drawing, especially in animals, are the fine hairs that grow over the eyes. Most people don’t pay attention to these things, but you must begin to see what others don’t. These tiny details make all the difference in having a realistic looking eye and just an eye. The tiger is a beautiful because of the striped patterns that its coat has. I decided to do a tiger as main subject because it will allow me to teach you many different techniques that will not only help in this tutorial, but also in drawing all kinds of animals. Once i have covered all the important features of a tiger, i will post a whole tutorial on drawing the whole tiger using the techniques that I’m explaining. Now, Notice the fine hairs that run around the eyes and the direction that the hairs run. These hairs will be drawn using the stylus and the techniques that i have explained in my previous hair tutorials. The image below is the final drawing that i ended up with. Follow the steps, but don’t get discouraged if yours does not end up like this one. It will take time, but i guarantee that you will see results with each drawing. OK, lets begin.

Tools Used:

• Canson Bristol Vellum
• 2b Mechanical Pencil
• 2h Wooden Cased Pencil
• Color Shaper
• Kneaded Eraser
• Stylus(Empty Pen)
• Stylus(Needle Pen)
• 4b Progresso Pencil
• Paint Brush

Step 1

The paper that i used for this drawing was Canson Bristol Vellum. Its a heavier paper and its great for the techniques that we will be using today. Since you’ll be indenting with the stylus, the tick paper will make it easier. We’ll first start off my drawing the outline. The outline will consist of the the eye, the hairs around the eye and the reflections in the eye. Draw the outline using your 2b mechanical pencil, this will allow you to lightly draw it and if you need to erase, it won’t leave any marks. I have made my outline darker so you can see it. This is just a rough outline, so don’t worry about it looking good, its just a starting point.

Step 2

Now take your 2b mechanical pencil and outline the eye.The area outside this will be all black because of the shadows being cast from the area above. Now take your needle stylus and you will begin to indent the hairs that are growing just above the eye. Make sure that you overlap them and that you curve them a bit. A suggestion to make things easier is to flip the paper around to find the best position to indent. For me i find that its easier to indent down than upwards. When i have to draw hair that is growing upward, i flip my drawing upside down to indent. Play around with this so you can understand what looks good and what doesn’t. Test it out on a different sheet of paper, thats always a good method to experiment.

In this area i used the needle because the hairs are finer and will suggest single hairs. You will be indenting around the edges and nothing else. This is so that when you run your progresso 4b pencil it will show the tips of the hairs. It makes things easier to understand where things start and end. Indent in the direction that you see in the reference photo. Do the same thing to the hair below the eye. After you have indented the top and bottom, all you do is run your 4b progresso pencil over the area to reveal the hair.

Step 3

Take your progresso pencil and fill in the area around the eye, the area that was outlined on the previous step. Make sure not to press too hard. The beautiful thing about the 4b progresso pencil is that you don’t have to ad to much pressure to get it on the paper. You should layer the pencil by adding and blending with your color shaper, repeating until its dark enough. After filling the whole area around the eye, take your kneaded eraser and press it between your index finger and thumb and squeeze. This creates an edge, now with it, tap around the bottom of the eye over the dark area. This will add a highlight, this will be the bottom eye lid that will be barely visible, just enough to suggest that its there. It should look like the image on 3a. When you are tapping you will notice that you lose the edge on the kneaded eraser after a couple of taps, so you’ll have to keep making it. It will take time to control the kneaded eraser around curves. But once you get the hang of it, you will realize that its a valuable tool that can be used to produce some amazing effects.

Now take your 2h pencil and you will start to blend the corners of that highlight. The left side of the corner will blend into the above area which will be all black. So make sure you add some 2h pencil from from the top end down to about the end of the other side, not all the way. Don’t make it too dark, because this will defeat the purpose of adding the highlight and you won’t be able to see it.

Step 4

Take your 2b mechanical pencil and outline the pupil along with that highlight that will be over it. Make sure to outline lightly the highlight. These two highlights will be reflections from the surrounding area, ill explain later. Now it may not look like anything now, but once we start adding more detail you will begin to see what impact it has on the whole eye.

Step 5

Take your paint brush and cover the area around the pupil. The brush is a great tool to lay down pencil smoothly. This will be the base that we will be working on and we’ll be adding layers of detail from here on. Once you have covered the area with it, take your 4b pregresso pencil and lightly outline the bottom part of the eyeball, just above the bottom eyelid. Blend it into the surrounding area. This will suggest that the eyeball is round in shape and that there are shadows.

Step 6

Take your 4b progresso pencil and cover the are above the pupil, making sure that you outline the highlight as well. This dark part is the eyeball being shadowed by the area above it. Take your color shaper and blend dow to the bottom. This will fade it in nicely and will produce a continuous fade into the light area. I have found that if some areas don’t blend completely, you can run your 2h pencil over the area which blends it nicely. Over all this we will be adding highlights and shadows so it doesn’t have to be perfect, but enough to make it look smooth.

Step 7

We will now start to add some depth and texture on the iris. Take your mechanical pencil and make some “W” shaped lines just below the edge of the pupil. Make sure to make some longer than others. These wont go all around the whole pupil, mostly on the bottom and should be less visible as you go around to the top. The image on the left shows what they should look like. These will be just dark enough for you to see them because you will be filling them in with your 2b mechanical pencil. These will be shadows and highlights and will give the drawing so much texture and life. It sure beats having just an eyeball and pupil. These simple details makes a drawing much more interesting and gives life to your drawings. We’re not done yet with the details. Lets move on.

Step 8

Using your 2b mechanical pencil to make the grooves on the bottom of the iris. This is to suggest layers on the iris. Look at the reference photo and you will notice these layers. This will not only give realism to the eye but will add some texture. The image on the left shows the pattern that were going for. Once you have the pattern like the one on the left, make the area under the red line darker than the rest of the iris. This area will indicate a shadow. It doesn’t have to look exactly like mine, but make sure it looks random.

Now take your kneaded eraser and squeeze it between your thumb and forefinger to make an edge. With it you will be creating some highlights that extend from the center out. Just tap with the kneaded eraser which will pull from the graphite leaving a lighter line. Make a couple that run from the center out, going from the left to the right side, just like the image above.

Step 9

Take your mechanical pencil and you will start to make ‘W’ shaped patterns under the highlights that you created on the previous step. These shapes will indicate slight shadows under these highlights. It gives the drawing a bit of depth and the more patterns the eye has, the more life it will have. Once you have the outlines, slightly shade and blend them into the area below, just like the image above. One important thing is to blend everything into the surrounding areas so it flows smoothly, but not completely or else you will lose the details. TIP: user your 2h pencil to blend, yup using this pencil works great at blending darker areas into the light ones.

Step 10

You will now be adding some markings that will another layer of detail. These markings will be made using your mechanical pencil. If you look at the reference photo you will notice the dark markings that are on the iris. Some are just dark spots, but don’t make the spots too obvious by making them round. Make them and carefully blend the edges so they fade into the rest of the eye. Some look like veins, just like the dark spots, make the ends fade into the rest of the eye. If you make some that are too dark or too thick, lightly tap with your kneaded eraser to make it lighter. Don’t worry if you think you made a mistake. There are no mistakes in drawing. Again, i can’t stress it enough that your first drawing will not be the best, so don’t get discouraged. But, I guarantee that with each one you will see improvements. With each one you will understand something new and will incorporate that into your next pencil drawing.

There is just one more thing that must be done to the eye, the highlight above the eye. Take your 2h pencil and lightly shade the left side. This side will blend into the left side of the eye. You may be wondering why the highlight has that weird shape. Well, eyes are very reflective and our eyes are the same. Look at your eye really close in the mirror, you’ll probably see your reflection on your eye. Well this shape is the reflection of what’s in front of the tiger, it could be trees,fields or bushes. The white part is the sky being reflected. It adds another touch of realism that will greatly improve your drawings. In this tutorial that is the last step, but you can go on and add whatever else you want from other details that you have seen in some reference photos that you may have. From here on you will be adding the surround hair around the eye. If you want to continue, just go to the next page or click on this link Drawing Hair Around the Tiger Eye.

]]> http://www.onlypencil.com/blog/cats/drawing-realistic-tiger-with-pencil-eyes/feed/ 45 http://www.onlypencil.com/blog/tutorials/drawing-realistic-tiger-with-pencil-nose/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=drawing-realistic-tiger-with-pencil-nose http://www.onlypencil.com/blog/tutorials/drawing-realistic-tiger-with-pencil-nose/#comments Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:57:10 +0000 onlypencil http://www.onlypencil.com/blog/index.php/archive/drawing-realistic-tiger-with-pencil-nose/ Let me start off by welcoming you back and by telling you to have fun with this tutorial and if you have any question please contact me. Lets begin, this tutorial will be a combination of different techniques that hopefully will help you improve in working with different textures such as hair. Why do i say textures? Well, that is how i see hair when i’m drawing it. Its just another texture that we are trying to capture. The tools that we will be using in this tutorial will help in achieving that. I don’t think its possible to actually draw hair, you can get it to look like hair but that’s about it. Of course you can draw a line and say that is a strand of hair, but even that is just a pencil line. What we are trying to accomplish here is trying to fool the eyes into seeing realistic hair on paper. How are we going to do that? I have mentioned in other tutorials that you can’t draw what you don’t know. So i always recommend that you first study what you will be drawing. Make it a habit and make it part of your drawing process, i can guarantee that it will be valuable in your drawing results.

On the previous tutorial,Drawing Realistic Tiger with Pencil-Chin, we focused on drawing the long hairs on the chin of a tiger. On this tutorial we will be using a combination of those techniques and other techniques to draw the hairs on the nose of a tiger. We will also look at how to add some texture to the nose. But before we begin we will look at an image of a tiger’s nose to get an idea of what we are going for. First we will understand what we want and then we will look how we will accomplish that using the tools that we have.

Well lets look at the image above. Something that i want you to notice is that the hair is layered. What do i mean by layered. Look at the part where the whiskers grow. If you look at the hair starting from the nostril and you move your way down, you will notice that each layer of hair is below the one above. If you haven’t read my other tutorials on hair, you will find out in this one that i use a stylus to produce lines what we will use to build up the hair. Using the stylus you will be indenting from the bottom up, so that the above layer overlaps the layer below. Just keep looking at the reference photo for guidance. Another thing that you will have to look at is the flow of the hair. Depending on the contours of the face and feature, it will flow in different directions. The direction that you indent will depend on the flow of the hair. Our goal with the stylus is to capture the hair highlights so that when we run the pencil over the indentations the shadows will be revealed. Ok, now lets start drawing.

Tools Used:

• Canson Bristol Vellum Paper
• 2b Mechanical Pencil
• 2h wooden cased pencil
• Color Shaper
• Kneaded Eraser
• Shami Towel
• Needle Stylus
• Pen Stylus(Make sure its completely empty!!!)
• 4b Progresso Pencil

Step 1:

We will start off drawing a rough outline of the nose. Use 2b pencil to draw it but make it light enough for you to see it. You don’t need to press hard with a 2b pencil so this way if you need to erase it won’t leave a mark. I made the outline a bit darker so you would be able to see it.

Step 2:

Now we will mark the flow of the hair, this is for guidance when using the stylus. Using the stylus,in this case the needle tip, indent around the edge of the nose down on an angle away from the nostril, in the direction of the hair flow. These lines will indicate the beginning of hair from the nostril out. When indenting here, make sure you make it a crisscross pattern and follow the flow of the hair. If you have problems just look at the reference photo at the beginning. Once you have indented around, take your progresso pencil and run it along the edge. This will reveal the indentations, bringing out the fine hairs. These little details is what makes a drawing jump out and gives it much more realism.

Step 3:

We will now do the same but this time we will do it in the section under the nose. Indent along the edges of the mouth up to the bottom of the nose in the direction of the hair flow. The area between the right side and left side, the area under the nose, will be dark because this is the area of the nose that is black and leads down to the top of the mouth. Make sure again you crisscross or else you will be left with just straight lines which will not look like hair. Once you have finished both side run your progress pencil over the edges and this will outline the hairs that will be growing over the dark area. The image on the left shows what you will be going for. These hairs will fade into the center which will add some depth and realism to the drawing. For these outlines we used the needle stylus because there is less hair in this section and the thin indentations will indicate single hairs.

Step 4:

Take your 4b progresso pencil and fill in the nostrils. This area will be obviously dark because its a dark hole. The same with the area under the nose. Actually this area under the nose is the nose itself which extends all the way to the bottom, but its dark in color so that’s why it will be black.

Step 5:

Take your other stylus(empty pen) and start to indent on the area where the whiskers are. You will be indenting from the bottom up, for the reasons that i explained at the beginning. Look at the whiskers , the area below each row of whiskers will be considered a layer of hair. By understanding this you can indent the hairs from the bottom up. Make sure that when you are indenting that you don’t do it in a straight line and in the same direction. Add some that have slight curves in either direction and others that overlap. Look at the reference image and you will notice that hairs overlap and cross each other. By doing this you are giving the drawing a more natural look. Once you have indented you can draw in with your 4b progresso pencil the areas where the whiskers will be growing from, the dark patches. These will be used for reference on where you will add the whiskers later on. Make sure you place these at the top where each layer of hair started.
Remember the edges along the nostrils that we created on the last step, well on this step you are going to blend them into the dark areas using the color shaper. Pull from the dark area out, but don’t do it too hard or else you will end up with a dark streak . Do it slowly and lightly until it blends into the black area. If you notice that the edge of the area has lost some of its darkness you can add some more graphite using your 4b progreso pencil. Keep doing this until its dark enough and the hairs have blended in nicely. One last thing to add are those curves that you see on each side of the nostrils. The area above these will be dark hair so you can make an outline using the color shaper.
If yours is not looking like my image, don’t worry about it. My goal in my tutorials is for you to understand the techniques so that you can use them on your drawings. Each time you practice, you will learn something new and in that process will improve your drawings. Pencil drawing is an ongoing learning process and these tutorials should be a start to improvement. So just have fun and experiment, if you find out that something else looks better from what im telling you, try it, go for it!!! That’s what makes drawing so much fun, the discovery of something new. OK, lets move on

Step 6:

We will now indent the whiskers using the empty pen(MAKE SURE ITS EMPTY!!!). Make sure that when you are making these that you make them have a slight curve. For example, on the left side, they would start going to the left and would then curve down, having a slight curve. Make some shorter than others and make some that overlap. Just don’t add too many. You have to make sure that you indent them in one quick motion. If you try to make them slow they will look all shaky. After you have made them you can thicken them by carefully running the empty pen over the indentations, this will increase the width of them. Something else that may be helpful is that there are different pens with different point sizes. There are some that have very fine points and some have larger points which can give you different sized indentations. What i like to do when i do whiskers is that once i have made the indentations with the pen, i take my needle stylus and continue the whisker to give the illusion that the tip is thinner than the rest of the whisker.

Ok, we now have the whiskers. Now we will start bringing out the hair by using your 2h pencil. Start by slowly and lightly outlining the bottom of each whisker, this will be the slight shadow that the whisker is making. Look at the reference photo above and you will notice that the hairs cast shadows,this is what we are going for here. The indentations makes it easier to see where you could add shadows, just don’t add them under each hair or else you will lose the illusion of a curved surface. This will come with practice, the more you draw hair, the easier it will be for you to figure out where to add these shadows so it has a natural look. Again, study reference photos and you will learn a lot from them. Here is another suggestion. If you’re drawing a lion, a tiger or any large cat, you don’t necessarily need reference photos of that specific animal. You can use also use reference photos of a regular house cat. You will be surprised at how much you can learn from these photos. Ok, back to the drawing. The area at the bottom of this section will be darker than the area in the middle because of the shadows being cast. This area is mostly white so you can’t darken it too much, just enough to suggest that there are shadow. For light shadows the best pencil grade is 2h.

Now take your 4b progresso pencil and lightly connect the dark patches where the whiskers grow. Once you have these you can lightly blend them together using your color shaper. You can blend it even more by running your 2h pencil below this area, to suggest that the the tip of the white hair gets lighter. I drew the image on the left side to show you the effect that we are going for. That all can be done with the 2h,the indentations and some shading. To add more depth and realism, take your kneaded eraser and squeeze it between your thumb and forefinger. This will create an edge on the eraser. Lightly tap the an area when you would like to make a hightlight and this will remove some of the graphite. Using this edge you can create slightly longer hairs that will go over the layers below. In that image i didn’t add any whiskers, because it was just for you to get an idea of what can be done by layering the indentations. This same technique can be used to add some highlights on this drawing we’re working on using the kneaded eraser.

One last thing to do in this part is to darken the area above those two curves on each side of the nostrils. This area will be the orange color that a tiger has on its fur. So it has to be darker than the white hair.

Step 7:

We will now begin working on the nose. This part is all about adding texture to give the nose realism. Before we go on, notice on the reference image how the hair on top of the nose overlaps the nose. We will now add this hair by indenting across the top of the nose. Again, make sure you indent in a random pattern, crisscrossing and overlapping. For now we will now just do this and will come back later to fill in the rest of that part. Now, take your color shaper and run it lightly all over the whole nose which will give it a light gray shade. The center of the nose will have a groove that runs from the middle of the nose and runs down to the bottom of the nose. The image on the left shows the what the nose looks like. The bottom part will be dark because that part is black in color and the shadows that are being cast. We have now added the base which is a slight gray color which we will build on. Over this you will add the dark markings. You can add them randomly or you can place them like i have done. Make these marks using your 4b progresso pencil. I use this pencil because you don’t have to press too hard to get a deep dark shade. You can make these markings any shape you want, just don’t make it look like its patterned, make it random. The bottom of the nose will now be blended with the color shaper. Take your shaper and pull the dark graphite from the bottom up. This will pull some graphite into the light section, from here just blend that into the surrounding area. Remember there is a groove running down the middle, so this groove will be dark and will fade out from the center out, therefore you should blend that too.

Step 8:

Take your 4b progresso pencil and start to darken the bottom of the nose. Slowly build on it by adding some pencil and blending with your color shaper. Make sure not to darken all the way to the top as the top will be hit by some light and its pink in color. Blend the dark patches into the surrounding area by pulling in circles around the patch. This will nicely blend the ones that are close together and will also blend into the rest of the nose. Remember, if after you use the color blender you pull too much graphite and the dark areas lose some of their darkness, you can always darken them with your 4b pencil.

Step 9:

This is next part for the nose is optional. I like to add textures to my drawings so i decided to add some dots using the empty pen. This will give the nose a rougher look and will suggest that its not smooth. You can leave it the way you have it now and just darken the edges so show contours and shadows. If you decide to use the texture, all you have to do is slowly press the pen on the paper in a tapping motion. Make sure that you make it random, but don’t cover the whole nose with dots. I mostly added this to the top section of the nose and added a few as you got closer to the bottom of the nose. Once you finished doing that you, you run your progresso pencil over the nose lightly, this will reveal the lighter dots. At first it might look weird, but once you start to blend them with your color shaper, you will notice that it adds a special touch to the overall look of the nose. If the dots are too noticeable, you can always use your kneaded eraser to pull some dark graphite.
We will now move to the section above the nose. Take you your needle stylus and start indenting on the area above the nose. I suggest you start indenting from the bottom up as the hair in this area is layered. Make sure that you make it as random as possible. But, remember that the indentations have to be close because this will be finer hair. Don’t make the indentations too long either because this area is covered in short hair. Crisscross them,curve them and overlap them. The way i like to do this is go from left to right and slowly move up until you get to the top. This might take a while to complete so be patient.
What is the purpose of indenting? Well, as i have mentioned before, you should study what you will be drawing before you actually start. After a while of studying and understanding how hair behaves and looks up close, you will start to see patterns in your indentations. By recognizing these patterns you will understand where to fill in the blanks to bring out the realist hair. The indentations are the hairs and the area not indented would be the dark shadows that the hairs cast. Don’t worry if you don’t get it the first time around. This will take you a while to understand and see, but when you do you will know that you got it by the results that you get.
Back to the drawing. Once you have completed the indentations, one neat trick to reveal the lines is to use a shami towel. Just add some graphite to the towel by taking your 4b pencil and user it on a different sheet of paper. Rub that area with the shami towel and this will add some graphite to it. Once you have some graphite on the towel, take it and rub the area that you have indented. It should now look something like the image above. Note that the top area will be darker than the area below, because the area that is close to the nose will have some white hair.

Step 10:

Start by darkening the area with your 4b progresso pencil. The outer edges will be darker because this part will curve down. Think of the nose as a cylinder where the middle of the nose is closest to you and you get closer to the sides its curves. Well since its curving, this area will be darker. By doing this you give the illusion of curves and depth. If after running the progresso pencil you notice that the lines are too noticeable. You can darken them by blending them with the color shaper. This will darken the lines, but in the process will remove some of the dark areas that you added with the progresso pencil. You will have to keep adding more pencil and shading to get the right results. Now take your 2b mechanical pencil and start to look for certain patterns. You are looking for shadows that the hair will be creating. And how will you know? Well the shadows will be the areas that have not been indented. Fill in these areas with your mechanical pencil, basically you’ll be outlining some hairs. Don’t do it all over, just pick some areas to suggest shadows and clumps of hair. This will take time to understand and to do, but you will get the hang of it as you draw more hair and study photographs of hair. To get the illusion of hair clumps, you take your kneaded eraser and you tap on some indentations. Look at the image on the left; that image shows indentations without adding these clumps of hair. If you leave it the way it is, it will look flat, it still looks like hair but it can still be improved. Now look at the image on the right. In this one i have removed some graphite along some of the indentations which gives the illusion of several hairs clumping together. I then outlined this clump and shaded from the top down. Its the same sketch just that i added this tiny details which made a big difference. As you can see, these simple details will give your drawings much more realism. Play around with it and see what you can come up with.

Step 11:

Its basically done, from here on you can add fine details to make it look better, like the lip under the nose which was covered in the previous tiger tutorial. You can darken the hair above the by adding 4b pencil and blending it with your color shaper. Outline the top of the nose which will bring out the hair that overlap that area. I also added the some hair on each side of the nose, which is the same technique that i used for the rest of the nose. Don’t be discouraged if yours doesn’t look like it mine. What i want you to understand is the technique and for you to practice it. Here is a good way to practice. Choose a section from the reference image above and try to draw it using the techniques that i have talked about. Keep practicing, that is the only way that you will improve. I can tell you that my first drawings were not even close to the ones that i draw now, and there is no magic trick to get them to look good. Its all about wanting to improve and having the passion for drawing. Well i hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you have any questions please contact me. If you found it helpful please share this tutorial.

I love animals and their way of life makes it fascinating to study. In this drawing my goal was to capture a moment where both animals are doing their own thing in the same space. The blue jay looking beautiful and singing to the world and the cat wandering around with it instinct always alert and ready. The blue jay bird has no clue that its being watched and if he doesn’t watch out can become lunch. This is how i see it but you can see it any way you want to since art can be interpreted in different ways. Well here it is.

Tools Used:
2h Pencil
6h Pencil
2b Mechanical Pencil
6b Progresso Pencil
Stylus
Kneaded Eraser
Color Shaper
Eraser

I had to use all my techniques to finish this drawing and im really happy with the results. Like i mentioned at the beginning, this is not only a pencil drawing, but a pencil drawing that tells a story and i believe i was able to do that. Despite its small size, this is by far one of my favorite drawings that i have made. This drawing took me approximately 3 hours to complete and you get to see it in 7 minutes, lucky you. Well i hope you enjoyed the video and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Well here is a video that i recorded while drawing. I have sped it up because this one took me around 2.5 hours. Watch it and ill explain a couple of things once you’re done.

Tools Used:

-Pencils 5h,2h,6b

-Kneaded Eraser

-Mechanical Pencil 0.5(2b)

-Eraser Stick

-Color Shaper

-Stylus

Lone Wolf Pencil Drawing

The image above is a closeup of this drawing. You can see the hair detail and how the indentations look up close. It not only gives the hair a bit much more realism and textures, but also a unique look that will separate it from other pencil drawings. Remember that this is a miniature so this is a close up of a tiny area of the drawing, about 1″x1″.

Look at the flow of the hair, the indentations are not straight, they criss-cross each other giving a more realistic look. If they were straight they would just look weird and unnatural. After studying other images of animals hair you will understand the flow of hair on the face, body and other parts. This understanding will greatly improve your drawings. Like I’ve mentioned before, you can’t draw what you don’t know or understand. You’ll be surprised that most animals have the same flow of hair on the face. The only difference might be the thickness of hair or color, of course shape of the head will also make a difference. Study different images and you will understand what i mean. The main focus on this drawing is the wolf of course, the trees and sunset in the background are mostly to give the drawing more impact. Well i hope you enjoy this drawing and if you have any questions please contact me. This drawing is for sale right now, so if you’re interested you can find it here.

A couple of days ago i was working on a section of a drawing where i need to add pencil that faded out lightly. In order to put pencil down smoothly on paper i have used a chamy towel which works great, but is not that good for tight corners. This towel works great for large areas. While working on that drawing i thought of using my paint brushes. I thought it was crazy but thought it might just work if i tried it. So i looked for the brushes and finally found them. I put down some pencil on a separate piece of paper to test it out. I then started brushing over it with the brush and to my amazement it blended beautifully. Just like that i had a new tool to work with. But it didn’t end there. I thought to myself that when i painted i would put the paint in the palette and would dip my brush in the color that i needed. So my crazy mind came up with the idea of rubbing my 6b progresso pencil over some sand paper to make some pencil dust. I collected this dust in a small container and whenever i needed to blend an area, i could just dip the brush over the dust. Of course you have to make sure that if you want to blend light lightly, you have to either use the brush without using too much dust or remove some of the dust by brushing on a separate piece of paper. You don’t have to use a 6b pencil, you can use whatever pencil you have or want. You can also use the pencil shavings that you get when you sharpen your pencils. Watch the video below to get an idea on how it can be used.

This tiger tutorial will be the first of a series that will conclude in a tutorial on how to draw the whole tiger. Animals are very expressive and the tiger is no exception. Being able to draw the eyes of the animal will bring the animal to life on paper. But the eyes are just one feature of a whole animal. Just as important as the eyes is being able to draw the hair which compliments the other features. The tiger has always been one of my favorite animals and drawing them is always great. They are not only beautiful animals but they look incredible as a pencil drawing.

The challenge for most people when drawing animals is giving a realistic look to the animal hair. Like i have mentioned before on other tutorials, the most important step before actually drawing hair is to understand it. If you understand how hair behaves on the animal that you are drawing, you will see how easy it will be to draw it using the techniques. You can read these tutorials on the techniques that i use to draw hair, drawing hair part one and drawing hair part two. These are an introduction to understanding the techniques that i use. In this tutorial we will be using these pencil drawing techniques to draw some tiger hair. I’ve been asked many times how i drew the hair on the chin on some of my tiger drawings. Well, this area is full of long and short hair and getting right can be tricky . But with the techniques that i use it can make things a bit easier. I do recommend that you first study how that area looks. Observe how hair overlaps, what direction hair flows, is the hair coarse or fine. In reality, i don’t draw hair, i give the illusion of hair. This technique is perfect for fooling the eye into thinking that it is looking at hair. It can be a tedious process but its not difficult once you get the hang of it. Understand the hair and you will know how to use the technique. Ok, lets take a look at that area.

From the image above you can see that the hair fans out from the center. But, you will also notice that the hair is not straight, it has a slight curve to it. Hair also clumps up and these clumps overlap each other. This overlapping causes shadows, so that means that the hair in shadow will be darker. If you want to give the effect of light reflecting off hair, all you have to do is leave that area white. Notice that the hair come together at the ends and it makes pointy clumps. The technique that will be used will outline the hair, but it will up to you to develop the clumps of hair. This is where understanding hair comes in. If you understand it, you will know where to add shadows to make these clumps in order to give the drawing much more realism.

Let start with the drawing. This might be a long tutorial but i want you to understand the process and understand the purpose of each step taken. Well here we go.

Well this is the drawing that we will be making today. The goal of this pencil drawing tutorial will be for you to understand how the the combination of different techniques and your understanding of hair can give a realistic look to hair. These techniques can be used on other areas and animals where you need to draw hair.

Tools Used:

• 2b Mechanical Pencil
• 2h Wood Cased Pencil
• 4b Progresso Pencil
• Kneaded Eraser
• Stick Eraser
• Towel
• Color Blender
• Bristol Vellum Paper
• Stylus
• Chamois Towel

Step 1

Take your 2b pencil and lightly draw the outline above. Don’t worry if your drawing does not look like finished image above. What you should focus on this tutorial is to understand the pencil drawing techniques. Try not to make the outline too dark, just dark enough for you to see it. This will be a rough outline that you will follow to outline the hair with the stylus.

Step 2

With your stylus you will indent some hair around the edge of the mouth. These indentations will represent the beginning growth of hair from the bottom of lip. The image on the left shows the area up close. This technique will be done with the area above the lip as well. When indenting with the stylus, make sure not to press to hard and make sure that the strokes are random. Random indentations will make give it a much more realistic look. If you have both types of stylus, the needle and the pen with no ink, i recommend that you interchange between them. The needle will give you finer lines than the empty pen. After you have indented the lines you will run your 4b progresso pencil over the edge of the mouth and you should see that the indented lines are now visible. Then you fill in the rest of the mouth using your 4b pencil. Don’t press too hard with the pencil. One trick to get nice darks is to add pencil and blend with the color blender and keep repeating the same process until you are satisfied with it. If you don’t have a color blender you can use a shading stump.

Step 3

You will now indent the hair that runs from the side of the face down over the edge of the mouth. Using your 4b progresso pencil you outline the mouth and filling it in with pencil. Indent the whiskers that were drawn in the outline. Once you have indented then you can erase the pencil lines leaving just the indentation. Here we will add the hairs on the edge of the beard. Use your stylus to indent the tips of the hair. Look at the reference image above to see the direction that the hair flows. You will notice that the hair fans out from the center out. Make sure they are not straight and crisscross them. Indent the lines up to where the hair will end. Make a couple of lines longer than the rest and these will represent whisker like hairs that stretch out. Once you indented around the whole beard, use the chamois to outline the indentations. You can add graphite to the chamois by putting down some pencil with your 4b progresso on a separate sheet of paper and rubbing with the chamois. You should now have something similar to the image above. Just rub the around the edge of the beard not the inside, this will outline the hairs at the end. It will serve as a guide to the remaining hair that will be indented later. The image on the left is a closeup of the bottoms section of finished drawing so you can see what we are working up to. As you can see this is a useful and simple way to start drawing something that most people have trouble with. If you want you can practice this technique on a separate sheet of paper before going on with the rest.

Step 4

Now that we have outlined the edge of the beard we will start to indent the hair on the remaining area. The trick here is to make the lines random. Make sure you don’t make the lines too long. If you indent the lines from the top all the way down, it will give the illusion of having long hair. If you look at the reference photo you can see that the hair overlaps and that its in layers. To get this layer effect i suggest you indent from the bottom up. Indent a layer starting from the left and moving down across to the right. The next layer would be a bit above the previous one and will overlap the lower layer. This way you can make sure that the indentations are layered. Another thing you must remember is not to indent the lines straight. On the left image you can see that the indentations are not straight, they have a slight curve to them. When indenting keep in mind also that hair clumps up and the hairs that make up this clump flow in the same direction. So there may be a couple of indentations that you could make in one direction and the next on another. The top area will have shorter hair than then bottom. To get the effect of shorter hair you will just make the indentations shorter. The results will be much better if the lines are random. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work out the first time. You can practice on a different sheet of paper. Once you have indented the whole area you will run the chamois over the area. You should be able to see the indented lines. You can use this also as a preview of how lines are turning out. The image on the left shows what you might see. If you see this it means that you made a couple of indentations that were parallel. The beauty of pencil is that you can erase. Erase this area and make some more indentations that overlap. The image on the right is the same image as before except that i erased what i had and indented a couple of lines to overlap the existing ones. This overlapping gives the effect a more realistic look.

Step 5

Taking your 4b progresso pencil you will begin to darken some areas. As you run your pencil, the indentations will be much more significant. Now this is where understanding how hair flows, overlapping and shadows comes into play. Once you have a a good understanding of this, you will know where to add these details. I can teach you the techniques but it will be up to you have an understanding of what you are drawing. In this step im looking for the clumps of hair that i will make up the whole drawing. With time you will know automatically where to add these darks. The spots that are under the mouth are similar to the spots that leopards and jaguars have. User your 4b pencil to add these spots. After making these spots you will notice that there will be some indentations that are white over these spots. You can use your color blender to blend them into the spots. If you don’t have any pictures of tigers, you can always use a close up of a cat. You’d be using the reference photo just for the hair so it really doesn’t matter that its a cat.

Step 6

Using your 2h pencil we will start to out line some clumps of hair that will give the drawing much more depth. The indentations makes it much easier to see these clumps once you know what you are looking for. As you’re running your pencil over the lines they will reveal themselves and by looking at those you will know where to shade next to reveal those clumps.

Step 7

On this step we will continue to reveal more hair clumps. You can begin to see what results you can get from layering. Just keep darkening around these clumps of hair using your 2h pencil. The color blender will be used to blend the pencil once you have the shadows. The shadows will be cast over hair below. To get this effect we will use the color blender to blend these shadows into the indentations below. This will be the illusion of layered hair.

Step 9

Taking your 2b mechanical pencil you will lightly add more layers to the drawing. By drawing a “W” shaped outline over existing hair allows you to do this. Once you have outlined them, you can outline the bottom with your 2b mechanical pencil. When you are doing this remember how the hair flows. It does not flow straight down but fans from the center out. Using your color blender you will blend down, which will give the effect of shadow being cast on hair below. The red lines above show how you could add them. Just make sure not to add too many layers, just enough to give a nice effect of depth. Adding too much will result in loosing some of the realism. Keep in mind that you can add whatever you want, test it out and you’ll know what looks right. Experimenting makes it fun and you’ll be surprised what you can learn from this. In this step we also filled in with 4b the area under the left and right side of the face. This will reveal the whiskers. Taking your kneaded eraser tap across the dark area on the mouth. This will be the dark lips on the tiger. It should have a banana shape, where the center is much wider than the ends.

Step 11

Well this has been a long journey and we’re almost there . On this step we will continue emphasize the shadows by darkening them lightly with 4b pencil and blending. You can now see how layering has brought dimension to the whole drawing. On the previous step we added “W” shaped outlines. Well on this step you can add those same outlines but just smaller and scatter them around. Now you can use your color blender to start blending those shadows. The shadows would blend down, so the best way to do this is to pull down the graphite over the area below using the color blender. To add highlights to the clumps of hair you will use the kneaded eraser. Squeeze the eraser between your index finger and thumb. This will make fine edge and you will just tap along where you want to have the highlights. Adding highlights that overlap on an angle across some areas will give the effect of overlapping hair. As you add these highlights you can add light shadows under them with your 2h pencil. Its just about experimenting from this point on and adding little details. You have the basic texture and look of hair done. Now you can add either more shadows and highlights. To add another nice effect you can use a stick erasers and cut the tip of it. This will make the tip flat. Now with the edge of it you run it from the top down following the fan pattern. This will make nice highlights which will represent long hair that overlap the hair that we’ve already made. On the edge you can use this effect to add more finer air. As you can see these little details makes a big difference on the overall drawing. I added more dark spots to give the drawing much more impact and you can do the same or leave the ones you already have. Look at different pictures of tigers to get an idea where you can add more and what changes you can make. You can also darken the shadows to have more contrast between light and shadows. Experiment with the techniques to get different results. The background was drawn by rubbing with the chamois towel, it will give a smooth look.

Conclusion

This was a long tutorial but hopefully it was helpful in understanding how to go about adding texture and realism to hair. Getting the right results will depend on how much you practice. Your first drawings will not be your best and i can tell you that the more you draw the more improvement you will see in your pencil drawings. Practice, practice, practice. This will be the first tutorial with a tiger. Next time i will write a tutorial on how to go about drawing the main features on a tigers face. After these tutorials we will work on a full drawing of a tiger using what we’ve learned from these lessons. If you have any questions or you need something for me to explain please contact me or leave a comment. If you want you can now try Drawing Realistic Tigers with Pencil-Nose tutorial.

In this tutorial we will be drawing a big smile. The purpose of this tutorial is to learn how to render texture and reflections using simple techniques. We will be using a combination of different techniques to give a more realistic look to lips and teeth. Well i hope you enjoy this tutorial and you learn much from it. My goal is for you to understand the techniques. My goal with this tutorial is for you to understand the techniques that can be used to achieve the effects. Your first drawing might not look as you want it, but i can guarantee that with time you will see results, its all about wanting to improve and practice. Well here we go.

You can use this image for reference. Click to see high resolution image.

Tools Used:

• 2b Mechanical Pencil
• 2h Wood Cased Pencil
• Kneaded Eraser
• Color Blender
• Chamois Towel
• Stylus
• Canson Bristol Smooth

Step 1

Well this is the outline that we will be working on. This drawing measures approximately 6 inches in width. I recommend using 2b pencil to draw the outline since you don’t have to press too hard for it to leave a noticeable outline. If you can use a heavier paper such as bristol it would be best. This will make using the stylus much easier. I will explain this on the next step. Don’t make the outline too dark, just enough for you to be able to see the pencil. I darkened the image a bit so you could see the outline.

Step 2

The stylus is an important tool that i work with. I use it on about 90% of my drawings. I’m all about tricking the eyes too see realism in my pencil drawings. This little tool allows me to add texture and realism with ease. Just like in the eye tutorial, i mentioned that most people haven’t paid any attention to the details of their eyes. The same is true with the mouth. We know the shape of our lips but we don’t know what it actually looks like. First of all they are not smooth. Lips are full of texture and one simple way to test this is to run one finger over them. You will feel the textures and contours. If you look at them close you will notice they are bumpy, especially the lower lip. You will also notice that when moist they reflect light and you can see these reflections. If you’re a woman you will notice these reflections much more if you are wearing glossy lipstick. These little things give the lips such unique characteristics and why not try to capture them on paper to give your pencil drawings much more realism.

Well in this step i filled in the space between the lower lip and the top teeth. Using 4b progresso pencil will give you a nice dark shade. The top gums were filled in lightly using 2h pencil to bring out the teeth. The teeth will be left for last. When working on a drawing with ahigh contrast of light and shadows, its great to lay down the darkest area first for reference. I also outlined the grooves that run down the bottom lip. These grooves are much more visible on fuller lips, but they are present on all lips. Well on the left corner of mouth i added some reflections and i did this my indenting some spots and lines using the stylus. On the left side you can see a reference. Once you have indented the lines and spots you can rub the area with the chamois towel. If you don’t know what it is, you can check out the tools to see what it looks like. Make sure that it is completely dry. Lay down some graphite with your progresso pencil on a separate sheet of paper and rub with the chamois. This will add graphite to the towel. Lightly run the towel over the indented area and you will see the indentations. Like I’ve mentioned before, there are many ways to achieve what you are looking for. This is how i do it, i think that using a stylus gives my drawings a unique look and theres actual texture in my drawings. Another way you can do this is to remove graphite with kneaded eraser in a dotted pattern. Experimenting is the fun part of drawing, and you will be surprised of what you can learn when you do. These reflections are not directly from the light source. The light is coming from the right side and these reflections are on the left side. Well these reflections are from other sources such as windows,light walls,etc that reflect the light source. Basically these are reflections of reflections. These little details will add much more realism to your drawings. Understanding these things will help in all your drawings. Study photographs and question why things look the way they do.

Step 3

We will now begin to work on the bottom lip starting from the left side. Running your progresso pencil over the left side will darken that area and will make the indentations jump out. Remember that the light source is coming from the right side and the area between each groove are raised, so they will cast a shadow to the left.

Step 4

Here we will outline the the reflection lines that run above the lips. These lines will serve as a guide to add the light texture. The red lines are groove lines that i added as well, these will serve as highlights which will give the drawing a bit more realism and much more depth. I added these groves using the stylus, in my case a pen with no ink. You can add finer ones later on using the kneaded eraser. These grooves will be blended into the area around it so they don’t look too obvious using the color blender.

Tools Used:

• 2b Mechanical Pencil
• 4b Progresso Pencil
• Kneaded Eraser
• Stylus
• Color Blender
• Chamy Towel
• 2H Wood Cased Pencil
• Bristol Vellum Paper

Well this is the drawing that we will be working on. The goal of this tutorial is for you to understand the technique that i used to get these effects. If the drawing doesn’t end up looking like this, don’t worry about it. As long as you understand the technique with time and practice you will see results. Well lets get started. We will use the image below as reference.

Step 1

Ok with your 2b mechanical pencil you first draw the outline. Draw it as light as possible so in case you need to erase there will be no marks. This drawing measures approximately 4 inches in width. I made the image darker so you could see the outline. This will tutorial will help you understand how to add texture not only to the nose but its a technique that can be used on other objects as well.

First thing i do when i start to draw hair is see the direction that the hair will be flowing. This is important because the hair will follow the contours of the face or body structure.

Tools Used:

• 2b Mechanical Pencil
• 2h Wood Cased Pencil
• Kneaded Eraser
• Hi-Polymer Eraser
• Color Blender
• 4b Progresso Pencil
• Stylus
• Canson Bristol Vellum Paper

Before we start the drawing i want you to know that results will only come from practice and if in the end yours doesn’t look like mine don’t worry about. I want you to understand the concept behind it and by practicing you will see results and find better ways to improve it. This is a technique that i have been working for a while now and im still looking for ways to make it better. Part of drawing is experimenting and should be enjoyable. If you practice these two things you will see results and improvement.

Step 1

Before we start i would recommend that you read this tutorial if you haven’t done so, Drawing Realistic Hair With Pencil Part One. It gives a brief introduction on the technique that will be used here. Well this will be the outline we will be working with. It measures approximately 5 inches in width. One thing about size, the bigger the drawing the more detail that you can add to it. For the outline I used 2b mechanical pencil for a light outline, don’t press too hard, it should be just dark enough for you to see it. It doesn’t have to look perfect, this tutorial will mostly focus on technique. We could have used any shape or object to cover with hair, but a cat is much more recognizable.

Step 2

We will add the whiskers in this step. Take your stylus, in my case i used a pen with no ink. Make sure the pen has ABSOLUTELY NO INK!!!! The best way to add them is to quickly run the pen along the whiskers lines that you drew in step one. If they don’t align exactly, don’t worry. As long as you’re able to put them down straight, you can add around six. Once you have them down you will reveal them using your 2h pencil. Run over the area with your pencil, holding it at around 30 degree angle. This will cover the area but not the indented lines. With your color blender you will blend the pencil that you put down. This will smooth it out, just make sure not to go over the white lines with the color blender. If you think the lines are too thin, you can erase the shaded area and thicken them by going over the line with the pen again.

Step 3

We can now start to add the outline for the cat hair. This should be random, but it should not be straight. Let me explain, hair grows in different directions at different lengths. If you just go in one direction, it wont look right and will look weird. You can test it out on a separate sheet of paper and see how it looks when you put down the lines straight. This the pattern i use. I drew it in pencil so you can see the pattern but you would do this using the stylus. There shouldn’t be any space between the lines, its best if they overlap as this would give it much more depth. The flow of hair is from the top left and curves down to the right. The layers of hair that is labeled on the above image are layers of hair that are overlapping each other. The dark parts are the spots where the thick whiskers are growing from. So these dark sections are created from the whiskers and the shadows from the hair above. To get this effect indent some lines with the stylus and outline the tips. The image on the right shows the top layer and the bottom layer. The lines that you see will be making will of course be made with the stylus. You would first indent the first layer, then using your progresso 4b pencil outline lightly just the tips. This will make the tips show. Now starting from where you outlined the top layer you start to indent the second layer below and you outline the tips. You keep doing this until you have the number of layers that you’d like. Now using your color blender pull the dark layers down over the layer below, this will give a shadow effect. Now where the whiskers are growing you would make it a bit darker just like the image above.

Now that we have that whisker section out of the way we can now start to indent the hair above. Randomly make the lines and after you have covered the area you lightly run your 4b progresso pencil over the area. This will reveal the hair, it should look like the image above. The section below the nose is drawn the same way except that it is not covered with 4b but 2h. Darken the area between the nose and the cheek. This area is darker because this is where hair comes together and since hair is going in different directions it creates more shadows. You will also darken the area where the hair starts under the nose. After outlining these areas, you can use your color blender to pull down some shadows like the image above.

Like ive mentioned before drawing hair/fur is not about actually drawing each and every hair. Its about fooling the eye into thinking its hair. How do we do this? Well the main things that jump out at you when you look at hair are the highlights and shadows. These 2 things combined make up hair. If you look at a up close photograph of some hair/fur you will see hair strands, but you will also notice that they are not all visible as single strands. Strands of hair clump up, these clumps depending where the light is hitting will cause shadows. Understanding light and shadows in hair will improve drawing hair dramatically.

Something else that you will notice is that hair is not all pointing in the same direction. Hair flows in different directions, even with short hair. Most people when they draw hair straight down which ends up looking like spaghetti, it has no flow.

So how do i draw hair. Well, the idea of giving the illusion of hair with lights and shadows hasn’t changed from when i started drawing. What has changed are the tools that i use to get that effect. I’m always looking for ways to fool the eye into seeing realism. The process that i take to draw hair is to first look at the type of hair that ill be drawing. Drawing short hair is totally different from the steps taken to draw long hair.

Negative Drawing is a big part of drawing hair and i recommend that you first understand what im talking about before going on. You can read the article here. The way i draw hair is a combination of negative drawing and scratch board. Scratchboard or scraperboard is a technique where drawings are created using sharp knives and tools for etching into a thin layer of white China clay that is coated with black India ink. Instead of a board i use paper and instead of knives i use an empty pen and needle. It sounds simple but its not just about scratching/indenting on paper. That’s why i said it is important to understand hair or else you’ll end up with realistic looking spaghetti hair with this technique

The tools that use are a pen with no ink and a pen with a needle inserted on the tip. You can see them here . Make sure that the pen has absolutely no ink, you don’t want to be halfway through your drawing and accidentally make a pen mark, trust me its not a good feeling . Also, make sure that the needle that you use on your other pen should not be too pointy. You can file it down using some sandpaper, but don’t make it flat or it will make a sharp edge. If its too pointy it will eat through the paper. The needle is a bit more dangerous to use because if you use too often on a single area it can start to shred the paper. I use the needle mostly for fine hair specially around the tips.

Ok, you now have your pen and your needle, now were ready to test it out. I recommend using a thicker drawing paper such a bristol. Not only because they work well with pencil but because the indenting stylus works great on it. I use bristol vellum and bristol smooth for my drawings. Vellum has a bit of texture to it. Ok, take your pen and draw three parallel lines, youwont be able to see them but they’re there. Now take some pencil and run over the lines. When revealing lines don’t use a mechanical pencil because the lead tip is real thin and will be able to go between the lines. I use a progresso pencil which is ticker and will easily go over the lines without going in them, just don’t press too hard. Voila, magically the lines appear.

Now take the pen and do the same but this time cross hatch them. Make lots of lines. Now run the pencil only over the top. This will outline the tips of the lines. These lines could easily be the top of some fine hairs. If you read the negative space article you will clearly notice that these lines are done using negative drawing.

Now what else can we do for more realism, well we can shade them to give the much more depth and give the effect of shadows covering some hairs. Taking your color blender, blend from the top down. This will pull the graphite from the dark area down. After you have done this, lightly run some pencil over some parts of the bottom area with your progesso pencil. This will outline some the indented lines The areas that are covered with pencil could represent space behind the the hair or darker hair that is below the lighter ones. Youre beginning to see what can be done with this technique.

Remember i mentioned that hair clumps up. Well we can get that effect by just erasing some dark lines between two strands using your kneaded eraser. This will give the effect of more than one hair together. Small details like these will give your pencil drawing much more realism. I suggest you play around and see what you can come up with.

Well this should be a good introduction and the basics on how i draw hair and fur. Next tutorial i will give an example on how you can use it on different types of hairs. We will draw the area around the nose of a cat,including whiskers. If you have any questions please contact me or leave a comment. I don’t want to continue on because i want to take my time with this topic since it can be pretty long and i want you to understand it really well. Ill leave you with a little homework Look at the image below and draw it using what i just showed you. There is no better way to improve than to practice and this should be a good start. Part 2

Before we start we should first see the difference between a cat and a person’s eye. One thing we can agree on is that they are used to see and basically thats where the similarities end. When talking about size, in relative to the head, a cat’s eyes are much bigger than a persons. This reason is because cats its bigger size is helpful for them to see at night. Their pupils are usually elliptical in shape and open up much wider than a pupil in a person. Another big difference is that you can barely see the sclera in a cat’s eye, their iris are much bigger. The size in their iris is what makes drawing their eyes so interesting. There is so much area to add detail and it gives the drawing so much life when you add the right effects. Here is a picture that shows the main differences between a cat and person’s eye.

Ok lets start. The first thing that you need to do is to have the outline drawn. You probably drew it and don’t know to go about adding the detail to it. Well the main focus will be on the highlights and shadows on the iris.

Tools used:

• 2b 0.5 Mechanical Pencil
• 2h Wood Cased Pencil
• Stylus
• 4b Progresso Pencil
• Kneaded Eraser
• Color Blender
• Smooth Bristol Paper

Take a look at the pupil(the black area in the center), this area contracts in size when light hits it. The area around the pupil is the iris, this is the area that gives us our eye color. As you can see its not just a blotch of brown, its made up highlights and shadows and this is what we will concentrate on. Adding the right shadows and highlights gives they eye depth and life. All eyes are different and you will see that adding different highlights in different areas gives different effects. The white dot close to the eye is the reflection of light source, it can be big or large, it depends if the person is indoor or outdoor. Another thing you must take into consideration is the shape of the eye. The surface of the eye is not flat, it has a curve to it. So taking that into consideration when drawing highlights will give the eye much more dimension. These are the tools that i used

Tools Used:

• 2h wood cased pencil

• 2b 0.5 Mechanical Pencil

• Kneaded Eraser

• Color Blender

• Smooth Bristol Paper

This is the final drawing of what we’ll be working on. I’ll try to give a detailed explanation of the whole process that i use. Again, study the picture above to get an idea of what you’ll be drawing. It will make much more easier and with time you will understand how to take the same steps yourself. With the same process try to draw the eye above so that you can practice.

Step 1

Well we will start by drawing the outline, this can be a fast sketch, but enough detail to show the shape. I used 2b 0.5mm mechanical pencil. Make sure you don’t make the outline too dark or else you will have an outline in the end. The three round circles close to the pupil will be light source reflections.

Step 2

Start by filling in the pupil using the 6b progresso pencil. Make sure not to press too hard or else you will not be able to erase it easily if you need to. One good way to get really darks is to layer it. Start off by lightly going over with with the progresso pencil and then use the the color blender to blend it. Add another layer of pencil with progresso and do the same with blender. Keep on doing this until you are satisfied with it.

Step 3

Take your 4b progresso pencil and put down some graphite on a separate piece of paper. Get it as dark as possible, then with your color blender lightly rub that area. Now if you look at the tip of blender you will see that it has some graphite. Now rub the area around the the wobbly circle. If you don’t a have a color blender you can use a tortillon/shading stump. I would recommend that you have both of these tools, they can be helpful in achieving different effects.

Step 4

Using your mechanical pencil draw the lines that you see around the area that was shaded previously, try to make them quick and light. If they are random, it would be much better. These lines will serve as a guide of highlights and shadows that the iris has. From the reference picture of the eye above, you can see that the iris is full of highlights and shadows.

Step 5

Using your mechanical pencil lightly fill in the area around the pupil. Then with with the blender blend from the center of the pupil out. This will also pull some darks from the center of the pupil, giving that area some shadows.

Step 6

The area outside of the iris layered under the rest of the iris, adding these shadows gives the iris much more depth. Lightly draw them under and blend them with the rest of the dark area. You don’t have to put shadows all the way around, just on random areas.

Step 7

Using your blender pull from the edge of the inner area outside. This will give a nice pattern and will be a guide for the highlights and shadows on the outer area. Make sure you don’t shade the highlights or else you will lose them. You can always erase those areas after so they wont be as bright. You can now begin to see the eye come to life, layering is a big part of pencil drawing and learning what goes on top and bottom is very important. It might take a while to go through all these steps, but the time pays off in the end. After practicing, it will become much easier with each one.

Step 8

Draw around the whole iris with the 4b progresso pencil, don’t press too hard. This will outline the whole iris. Take your kneaded eraser between your index finger and your thumb then squeeze. This will give the kneaded eraser a fine edge. You will use this to pull some highlight from the area outside of the pupil. Make the highlights going around the area, don’t add too many, just enough that they stand out. If you pull too much graphite, just add more with the pencil, blend it with blender and use kneaded eraser again. You will probably need to make new edge on eraser after each time you pull graphite because it will stick to the edge. If you don’t, next time you try to make a highlight it will not pull as much graphite. These little erasers are amazing and all pencil artists should have them in their tools.

Step 9

Now blend the area that you outlined on the previous step. If its not dark enough just put down more pencil and blend it, it should look like the image above. On the previous step we pulled out some highlights with the kneaded eraser. Now randomly darken between some of those highlights using your mechanical pencil. This will bring out some of the highlights much more and will also add some shadows. Outline the edges of that area, this will make it stand out. Using your blender blend the edge of the pupil with the area outside. Don’t blend it too much, just enough so the end of the highlights blend out nicely.

Step 10

Using your progresso pencil draw out that shape that you see on the image above, it doesn’t have to look exactly, but it should be random. Don’t draw the outline too dark, just enough for you to see it. Darken the area below that outline, don’t make it too dark that it will stand out too much from the rest of the iris. Blend it just a bit in some areas so that it blends a bit into the rest of the iris.

Step 11

Using your kneaded eraser add some highlights around the outer iris. These highlights will be larger than the ones in the center. You can also make some that start from the outer edge of the pupil to the end of the iris, but don’t make too many of these.

Step 12

On the previous step we added highlights going straight down, here you will add highlights with kneaded eraser in an angle. You’ll be making “W” shaped highlights, just make enough that it will give the iris some texture. After making these highlights, you will add shadows, under some of these highlights. In the image above you can see a very clear “W”, below that you can see a darker area, this will be the shadow for this highlight. Add these shadows to some of the highlights around the iris, not all of them, make it as random as possible. Using your color blender, blend the ends of the these highlights so they don’t look like white lines. In this step we will also start working on the sclera, which is the white part of the eye. The tip of the color blender should still have some graphite, so use that to put down some graphite around the sclera like the image above. The two circles that you see on the right side will be highlights that will suggest wetness.

Step 13

Taking your mechanical pencil, darken the shadows around the edge of the iris. Add some dark lines in between some of the highlights for so the highlights can jump out more. In this step you can also experiment with highlights, add more or take away. We now have the basic design for the iris, from here on we can start to darken the whole iris by adding light layers of graphite using 2h pencil. If you’re drawing and eye that is blue, green or light in color, you would leave it like this. We also shaded the fold thats under the eyebrow and above the eyelash. Using your kneaded eraser you can erase between the glare spots to blend them together.

Step 14

Here we will darken the iris. Before we do that we will add some eyelash reflections, you don’t have to add this to all your drawings, but if the drawing is big enough you can. Over the 3 glare spots you can draw some eyelash reflections. The reflection from eyelashes would be reflected on the surface of the eye, since the glare spots are at the top and are white you can draw over them the tips of the eyelashes. Once you have done this, you lightly put down a layer with the 2h pencil over the whole iris. This will darken the highlights, darken the top section of the iris a bit more because this part will be a bit more darker because of shadows of the top of the eye and eyelashes. I added some other details like the reflections on the corner of the eyes. With the 2h pencil i also added some light blood vessels that run out from the corners of the eye. These little details make a big difference in drawing a realistic eye. Look at the reference photo at the beginning so you can see those blood vessels. Darken the sclera, the white part of the eye a bit with the blender, especially the corners. This will give the eye more depth and realism with the subtle blood vessels.

Step 15

The eyelashes are added, take a look at the angle that they are drawn, they are not drawn straight down,except for the ones in the center. These are drawn last because they are on top of the of the other features. Using your kneaded eraser you can add some highlights,which would be some hairs reflecting some light. You can play around with them to get a much realism. Just make sure you make sure to curve them, they are not straight. The ones in the center don’t have much of a curve because you’re looking straight at them.

Step 16

We will add now the lower eyelashes, these should be a bit lighter so you can use a 2h pencil to draw them or use the mechanical pencil and then use an edged kneaded eraser to tap along the hair to remove some graphite. Like the top eyelashes, the center ones curve down and you go either left or right so you start to see the curve on the hair.

Well that is about it, it might seem long but with time you will be drawing them with ease. Don’t worry if the first time it doesn’t come out right, keep practicing and you will see results. The more you draw it, the more you will understand each step and it will become much easier. Don’t be scared to experiment, study the reference eye and look at the features. Using the same tools that were used try different ways to put down those details. Be creative with the process, before you know it you’ll your eyes will be glistening and staring at you .

Conclusion

This tutorial should be only the first step, one thing i can tell you is that the more you draw the better you will get. I won’t stop reminding that you should study whatever you’re drawing. Understanding what you are drawing is so helpful and the end results will show the preparation. Hopefully this tutorial was helpful, if you have any problems or have any questions, leave a comment or contact me.

Share your results with others and get feedback from other members by posting your images here, Drawing Results

As artists, we try to capture with accurate precision what we see down on paper or canvas, unless you are working in an abstract style. Like i mentioned before, a photograph is a great tool to work with. Now that you have the photo, you have to transfer it to your working surface. There are people who say that using the grid is not something that a true artist should use. Artist have always looked for methods to capture the moment as accurately as possible. Just like the camera is a great tool in art, the grid is also very helpful in drawings. But, when working with grid, don’t just copy the reference, try to understand what you are drawing. The distance from eye to mouth,perspective,depth, so that later on your eyes will automatically calculate distances and you will use the grid as reference less.

Well the grid is not a new technique, it has been around for a long time. Like i’ve mentioned before it is very helpful in accurately transferring your reference to paper. This method teaches you also how to accurately draw in proportion. Artists such as Van Gogh and Da Vinci used the grid, but we attribute it to Albrecht Dürer. His magnificent drawings shows such realism and the grid was part of that success.

Its a simple technique where you place a grid on your reference and having the same grid pattern on your paper, you transfer the image using the squares as reference.

Process:

Well its a fairly simple process. I will explain the method that i use

For me the purpose of using the grid is to get the drawing on paper accurately. I first start by dividing the paper in half. If its possible use a mechanical pencil with a 2b lead to draw the grid. This way you barely have to touch the paper with pencil to get a line and it won’t leave an indentation on paper, it will also erase easily. Now, lets take for example an 11″x14″ sheet of paper. Half of 14″ is 7″ and half of 11″ is 5.5″. Plot these points on paper and these will be the half way points on paper. I use a T-rules to draw down the center, but if you don’t have one, you can just plot on both sides of paper and just align them with ruler to draw the line. Ok, now you should now have something similar to this.

Now what i do from here is draw the remaining lines starting from the center. My grid is made up of 1.5cm squares. So now place your ruler and start dotting in increments of 1.5cm. If for example you place the ruler down on the paper and vertical center line lines up to 10cm on your ruler, the next dot on the paper should be placed at 11.5cm and so on. until you get to the end. You do the same going to the left of the line, except the next point will be 8.5 cm and so on. Its the same process going up and down, except you now use the line that divides the paper horizontally. When you are done plotting the points, you should have something like this. I made these lines darker so you can see them, but on your paper they should be barely visible, enough for you to see them, so the lighter the better.

Now you connect the lines using your ruler or a T-ruler. Again, make sure you lightly draw them so marks are not left on paper when you erase them. After you are done drawing the lines, you should have something like this. erase around the edges so that you are left with a white border around the sheet and the 18×22 squared grid.

You know have the space that you will be working on, this is for 11″x14″ sheet. Different sized paper will get you a different grid. If you are working with large drawing paper, it would be best to make the squares bigger so that you don’t have to be drawing too many squares.

Grid the Reference Photo

Now, how do you get the grid on your photo? Well i draw from my computer so i just open up my reference image and put a grid over the image, save the the file as a photoshop document(.psd). Whenever i need to draw i just open up the file and the grid is there.

Lets take this image as an example.

Now open up the image in photoshop and make sure grid is on, if its not, go to view->show-> put check mark on ‘Grid’. You should now see this

You can’t see the lines that well because of the grid color. You can change that by going to Edit->Preferences->Guides, Grids and Slide… Here you can change the size of the squares and grid color. This window should open.

Ok, from the grid on the paper we know that there are 18 squares going across and 22 going down. On this window we can change the ‘Gridline every’ value until until you have the right number of squares squares going up and down,in this case 18 across and 22 down. Once you have gotten the grid as close to the edge as possible with the number of squares that you need, click ok. You’re left with something like this.

Go to Window->Layers, the layers panel will open up. double click on the layer that says background and when the window opens click on ‘Ok’ and it should be renamed to ‘layer 0′. Well, now you can do 2 things, you can resize the image so that it fits within the grid that we need or just use the image area within the grid area.

If you decide to resize go to Edit->Transform->Scale. Now you’ll be able to resize the image. Make sure that you keep the shift key pressed when resizing so it keeps the image in proportion. With shift key pressed on keyboard, with the mouse pull the bottom right corner of image up until image it is within the grid that you need. Once you are satisfied with size, press Enter key. If you want to center image just use the up and down arrow keys to move image around. Now you can copy the whole grid area. Go to Window->Tools, this should open your tool panel, the first one is the select tool.

Go to View-> and put a check mark on ‘Snap’, choose the ‘Select Tool’ and click the top left corner of image and drag down to bottom left until you reach 18 across and 22 down. The selection will snap to the grid. Go to Layer->Flatten image. You should have something like this

Now the area that you will be drawing is selected, go to Edit->Copy. This will copy that area to clipboard. Now go to File->New and click ok. A new document will open. Go to Edit->Paste. This will paste what was copied previously, which is the area that will be drawn. If grid is not visible go to View->Show->put check mark on grid. Now you can go to save and save it as photoshop format(.psd). Now whenever you need to draw just open the file and you’ll have the image with the grid.

Another way that you could have done it is instead of resizing just copy the area within the grid without resizing. This method will crop the image to the size of the grid.

Conclusion

You can use this method to draw the outline down on the paper, once you have it down you can print out the image that you saved and you will have that as reference for the detail. If you don’t have photoshop you can use GIMP which is free and you can check out this tutorial on using grid here. If you have questions or need something cleared up, please contact me or leave a comment. Keep on drawing

Well, negative drawing is basically drawing without actually drawing. Its drawing something by drawing around it. for example, look at this image.

The white square is drawn negatively and the black square is drawn positively. The white that you see would be the paper that you are drawing on. It was drawn by drawing around the shape of the square leaving the area white. The white area is the negative space. In negative drawing the white space is not erased, its created by drawing around it.

The correct method for negative drawing is to observe the shapes formed around or in between object(s). Once you understand the shapes you begin shading the area around these shapes revealing the negative space. Drawing the outline first and then shading outside the outline is not negative drawing. Positive drawing is the opposite of this, which is what most of us do to draw. We draw the outline and we draw in the detail, this is positive drawing.

The image above was drawn by shading around the shapes without drawing the outline first. This could easily be blades of grass overlapping each other. But this is just the outline, you can then add the detail to suggest overlapping blades . Once you have the shape you are looking for, you can add detail or in the case of whiskers, they can stay totally white.

This technique is incredibly useful when you want to create different effects. Its great when drawing whiskers and grass. Here are more examples of negative drawing, these are simple but they show basically what negative drawing is.

I use negative drawing often in my drawings, especially for drawing realistic animal hair. In the image above, the drawing with the three lines was created using the stylus tool that i have, a pen with no ink. I used the pen to indent on the paper leaving white lines, then i passed the pencil over and it left a clean white line. This is a technique that is great for hair texture and highlights. I will explain it with much more detail when i do the hair tutorial.

Exercise

Here is an exercise for you to work on, look at the image above and draw the green leaves using negative drawing. Shade the area outside of the leaves, so that you’re left with the shape of the leaves,the negative space. If you need some help you can look at the image below to see what areas need to be shaded to get the negative space. If you have any questions, please comment or contact me.

Negative Drawing